Historically, corporate travel has often escaped the close scrutiny by management that was used for every other function of the corporation. Travel dollars were seen as a necessary evil and were spent until the corporate balance sheet showed more problem than promise. Recently, corporations have aggressively examined every process and paradigm to re-engineer and transform themselves into a lean and highly-productive corporate machine that can support success and growth. As a result, travel dollars became one of the first expenses tightly controlled or cut.
Given that approximately $130 billion were spent on travel in 1994, Corporate Travel Managers are examining and implementing a variety of solutions to manage costs and change the aura that typically surrounds corporate travel expenses. For example, corporations have consolidated travel management in credit card services, published corporate travel policies, and mandated the use of preferred travel providers.
Corporate policies, however, that force a frequent traveler to sit through a two hour connection or stay in a less than mid-line hotel off the beaten path have driven the typical frequent traveler to come up with creative ways to circumvent the travel policy in order to meet their own personal requirements. Frequent travelers are bypassing policy at every turn to maintain their productivity and to take advantage of any perks that compensate them for long hours away from home. This scenario compounds the already huge information deficit Corporate Travel Managers are struggling to resolve including travelers' circumvention of corporate policy, which results in travel data being totally lost.
From a corporate standpoint, travel has an impact on the traveler, the Corporate Travel Manager, the Department Manager, Accounts Payable and the Corporation itself. The traveler seeks an easy and fast way to arrange travel. Under conventional methods however, the traveler must arrange trips through a series of telephone conversations with a travel management firm or agency. In addition, the traveler seeks an automated expense reporting system. Present methods which combine manual and automated forms may require repetitive data input of previously requested travel information for report presentation. In addition, the approval and reimbursement of expenses is typically manual.
The Corporate Travel Manager needs a true summary of the total corporate travel expenses by category. Presently, the Corporate Travel Manager may estimate travel expenses and category breakdowns based upon report information from Travel Management Firms, corporate credit card companies, or preferred vendors. These estimates may be inaccurate, however, if the traveler made on-the-road trip changes, did not comply with usage of corporate travel agencies or credit card, or stayed in a hotel that is not the same as the one which was booked. Corporate Travel Managers must also stay informed as to the status of preferred vendor agreements. Historically, summaries of the corporation's actual market share performance was provided by travel management firms or the preferred vendor. These summaries, however, were typically not provided on a timely basis, provided minimal information on a pre-travel basis, and provided no method for self-validation of performance.
Department managers need pre-travel reporting of travel expenses and possible violations of travel policy. Presently, random manual notification of policy violations is provided by travel management firms to the Corporate Travel Manager. Typically, this notification is insufficient or not timely enough to allow Department Managers to enforce corporate policy on a pre-travel basis. Department Managers also desire an automated expense reporting system. Current methods require manual processing of approval and reimbursements of expenses by Department Managers.
Accounts Payable desires an automated processing system for expense reports. Current methods require manual auditing, posting, and payments of expense reports.
Many of the limitations on the current corporate travel planning and management systems stem from the corporate traveler's dependence on travel management firms. Travel management firms currently function as the central hub for all travel service and information regarding travel for the corporate traveler. There is a total reliance on the travel management firm by the travelers for trip planning and management as well as by the Corporate Travel Managers for summary reporting.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a corporate travel planning and management system which operates on a corporate database environment that allows automated travel planning from a corporate traveler's desktop, pre-travel decision support to inform a corporation of planned travel expenditures before corporate dollars are spent, and automated expense reporting.
The present invention comprises a client-server system for corporate travel planning and management which operates on a corporate database environment, comprising desktop LAN software as well as a Travel Planning module and a Travel Expense Reporting module, which together provide solutions for two of the manual and most costly areas of corporate business travel management. The two modules may coexist as fully-functional, stand-alone modules or be integrated into a Travel Decision Maker module creating a comprehensive travel management system.
The Travel Planning module of the present invention provides the corporate traveler with a desktop system that provides a graphical user interface to real-time Computerized Reservation Service (CRS) Data for efficient travel planning and booking. The system targets two of the most prevalent types of corporate trips, the simple 2–4 segment trips that include air, car, and hotel accommodations as well as the common or repeat trip, estimated at 40%–70% of all corporate travel.
The Travel Planning module interacts with locally stored traveler and corporate profiles in a relational database that function as filters against real-time CRS Data output to ensure the appropriate corporate vendor preferences are displayed to and booked by the corporate traveler. The present invention enables the traveler to complete the entire booking process, which results in the creation of a Personal Name Record (PNR), or to create a PNR with a booking request which a travel agency completes.
The Travel Expense Reporting module of the present invention provides to the traveler's desktop a system that automates the preparation of travel expense reports. The system also automates the routing of expense report to assure appropriate authorization, accurate expense reimbursement and timely posting of expense totals to a corporation's general ledger.
In addition, the present invention provides automated summary reporting of the actual costs of corporate travel. The reporting is enabled by the relational database, which resides in the corporate environment, that tracks all data from the expense report process and provides comparisons to yearly vendor market share contracts and budgets. A number of automated reports are provided to both the Corporate Travel Manager and Department-level Managers to enable timely and proactive management of corporate resources.
The Travel Decision Maker module of the present invention incorporates information that results from the Trip Planning and Expense Reporting modules to enable comprehensive pre-travel and post-travel reporting for Corporate Travel Managers and Department Managers. The Pre-travel and post-travel information that feeds the Travel Decision Makers module is integrated into a relational database via the travel planning and expense reporting processes.